


sex wax

by ghosthunter



Series: sweat, saltwater, surfboard wax [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Surfers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 13:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11852214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthunter/pseuds/ghosthunter
Summary: Nicke takes a deep breath, running his hands through his hair. “You’re an idiot,” he tells himself, because he’s bending over backwards to do a favor for a guy he doesn’t know, just because he’s cute? Then fine, Nicke’s an idiot.





	sex wax

**Author's Note:**

> anyway, this is what happens when a very strong image is created by a twitter thread and oh yeah, i'm fucking unhinged. so thx to everyone in that thread, donya for cheerleading, and lanie for beta even though she threatened to delete all my commas and leave me drifting in the wind.

Getting to the beach closing in on 7AM is late for Nicke. His usual routine is waking up before dawn, grabbing a cup of coffee, and heading to the beach. He throws his t-shirt into the backseat of his jeep and pulls the top of his wetsuit up, zipping it into place before pulling his surfboard from the back. He kicks his flip flops off and tosses them into the back as well, walking barefoot across the asphalt and down the sand.

He can see a few people out on the waves - probably even people he knows. He starts to wade out, watching as someone goes to take a wave, then wipes out hard enough that Nicke winces. He paddles out to his usual spot, and finds his roommate, Marcus, sitting astride his board.

“TJ’s off his game this morning,” he says when he spots Nicke.

“I saw,” Nicke says, looking back over his shoulder, out at the ocean, looking for his first wave of the morning.

“He might be bad at surfing,” Marcus says, as TJ joins them.

“Fuck off,” TJ says.

“He’s just still drunk from last night,” Nicke says. “Gotta stop hanging out with frat boys.”

Nicke doesn’t stick around to hear what TJ says after that, because he starts paddling to catch a wave, and the splashing drowns out TJ’s voice.

 

Nicke opens the shop at 10 every morning, after his morning surf, after they’ve stopped for breakfast at the cafe down the block. Nicke’s been working there since he moved to California - years after he first visited and took his first surfing lesson. He took lessons there when he started college, and eventually Barry, the owner, gave him a job.

He’s the manager now, older and nearly graduated, putting in his last few hours of class part-time at night. So he gets up in the morning, early, puts in a few hours of surfing, opens the shop and works for a few hours, then heads out to classes in the early evening. Sometimes they go surfing, later, before the sun starts to set. Sometimes they go out. Sometimes TJ convinces Nicke he needs to come to a totally bangin’ frat party, which Nicke knows is not a real thing, but sometimes Nicke goes anyway.

It’s a small shop, and not super busy during weekdays once school is in session. Nicke likes it, because it gives him time to work - whether work is making sure everything in the shop is in its place, or whether work means actually studying. Sometimes, work just means sitting behind the counter and waxing his board.

Which is what he’s doing when The Guy walks in.

He’s taller than Nicke, heavy with muscle. He does not look like the surfer type, at all. He pushes his sunglasses up into dark hair and Nicke has to actually meet some very blue eyes and - 

“Can get surfing lessons here?” he asks. He’s got a thick accent and a missing front tooth. Huh.

“I can schedule you for this weekend,” Nicke finally says, tearing his gaze away from The Guy and reaching under the counter for the appointment book. He would love to do this on the computer, but their shop’s computer runs something like Windows 96 and Barry likes the paper appointment book, anyway.

“Yeah,” he says. “You have space for three appointments?”

“All at once?” Nicke asks.

“Me and my friends visiting for a while, I’m make them learn to surf with me,” says The Guy. He grins, gap toothed. Nicke is pretty sure that his soul has left his body.

There’s not a time-frame where there are three sessions available concurrently, not on the weekend just after the beginning of the school year, when all the kids who are new in town want to be super social and learn to surf like all the kids who have lived there for the last 100 years. Nicke knows, because he did it. Well, not quite - he’d taken lessons when he was a kid and his family had vacationed there. He knows people who did it, and he sort of did it.

But the thing is, they usually wrap up lessons at 4PM on Saturdays, and TJ definitely owes him, since the last time Nicke bailed him out at Frat House Beer Pong. (Nicke is good at a lot of things - beer pong is one of them.) TJ would probably clock a couple of extra hours for some cash.

“So,” Nicke says, looking up at The Guy from the book. “We don’t have slots for three lessons at once, and they’re one-on-one. But I think I could maybe arrange something? I just have to text the guys who do the lessons really quick, and see if they don’t mind staying a little late. Let me write your number down, and I can let you know?”

The Guy grins at him again, and rattles off his number. Nicke scribbles it down in the book.

“It shouldn’t take them long to get back to me. Probably around an hour. I’ll let you know,” Nicke says.

“Thanks!” The Guy says, and waves at Nicke on his way out the door.

Nicke takes a deep breath, running his hands through his hair. “You’re an idiot,” he tells himself, because he’s bending over backwards to do a favor for a guy he doesn’t know, just because he’s cute? Then fine, Nicke’s a fucking idiot.

He texts TJ and Lars anyway.

 

TJ comes in to take over for Nicke when Nicke has to leave for class in the late afternoon. Nicke is trying to ignore the way TJ is staring at him. Once TJ’s there it’s only a matter of time before Lars rolls in as well. It’s Nicke’s best hope that he can slip out of the shop before Lars arrives, and avoid whatever grilling he’s going to get.

Unfortunately, Nicke’s on the phone and he can’t escape before Lars strolls through the door.

“So,” Lars says, his hair hanging into his eyes as he reaches for the appointment book underneath the counter. “Exactly how hot does a guy have to be before you not only book yourself for extra work, but your friends?”

“Come on,” Nicke says. “It’ll be a month before we have three slots at the same time. He’s just a tourist. It’s the nice thing to do.” Lars raises his eyebrows as he looks at Nicke. “It’s extra cash.”

“I like extra cash,” Lars says. “But you’re also gonna buy me dinner after.”

Nicke rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says.

“Hey,” TJ says. “Do I also get dinner?”

“Do I have to come keep you from losing $500 at beer pong again?” Nicke says, turning to look at TJ. TJ just holds up his hands and backs away.

“I’m gonna be late for class,” Nicke says. He grabs his bag and heads for the door.

“Hey,” TJ yells after him as he’s halfway out the door. “Beach tonight?”

“You gonna stay on your board?” Nicke asks. TJ gives him the finger and Nicke lets the door bang shut behind him.

 

The Guy is named Alex, but his friends keep calling him Sasha. He doesn’t call them by the names they give when they fill out the forms, either. Two of them are students, one at the university, but Alex himself has recently graduated.

They chatter all of this to Nicke, TJ, and Lars as they fill out the paperwork for the lessons in the shop before they head down to the beach. It’s well past four, the time they’d normally be off on a Saturday, and Nicke’s nose is starting to sunburn. So is TJ’s, actually, and Nicke tosses him the tube of sunscreen he keeps under the counter.

The lesson is… the lesson. One of the guys, Dima - Dmitry - is halfway decent at surfing, but Alex spends most of his lesson under the waves.

At 6PM, when the lesson is over, Alex throws himself on the sand, out of breath, lying next to his rented surfboard. His other friend, Evgeny, who was also bad at surfing sprawls out next to him. Nicke can remember what it’s like the first time out, still learning, even as the third of their trio laughs breathlessly at them.

“Come on, guys,” Lars says to them. He reaches down a hand to pull Evgeny back to his feet. “We gotta check the boards back in. Then Nicke here has to buy my dinner.”

“Because you do him such a great favor, trying to drown us,” Evgeny says. Lars laughs.

“Oh, I didn’t try and drown you,” he says. “Your shitty balance did that.”

Alex laughs at that, and pushes himself to his feet. “We come back, maybe buy board, keep practicing.”

“You can do rental,” Nicke says helpfully.

“Think about it later,” Alex says. “Too tired right now.”

“Tell us where you going for dinner,” Dmitry says. “Maybe we go there.”

“You wanna just come with us?” TJ asks.

Nicke whips around to look at him. TJ is grinning and Nicke knows that no amount of glaring is going to get TJ to back down. Nicke is going to have to kill him later.

They walk back up to the shop. There’s a yellow truck in the lot - a total fucking eyesore - and TJ yells and hurries to meet the driver, who pops the door open when he sees them coming. TJ ditches his board in the bed of the truck and bounces into the driver’s arms, jamming their mouths together. Lars wolf-whistles at them as he walks past and into the shop.

“No tongue in the parking lot,” Nicke says, though they’re well beyond that point. TJ pulls one arm from around his boyfriend’s neck to throw a bird Nicke’s way.

Andre is sitting behind the counter. Lars checks the surfboards back in and doles out passports to the Russians. TJ saunters into the shop after a few more minutes, his boyfriend, John, trailing after him.

“So, Nicke,” he says. “Where are we all going for dinner?”

Andre, behind the counter, heaves a deep sigh. He’s on until close at 9, so he knows there’s no chance to go to dinner and hang out with the rest of the guys for him. Even these new tourists that they’re apparently adopting. Nicke also sighs, because how the fuck is he going to get six - no, seven, because TJ will want John to tag along - people into a restaurant at dinnertime on a Saturday night.

“Let me text Marcus,” he finally says.

 

“You fucking owe me so big,” Marcus says. The hostess is leading Nicke’s party back to a table, and it’s mere chance that Marcus is even walking past Nicke carrying a tray. “And I expect the biggest tip you’ve ever given anyone in your life, Nicklas.”

Nicke’s not going to be goaded into giving him the finger in the middle of a crowded restaurant, so he just glares instead. Marcus whips away from him, holding his tray above their heads so nothing gets bumped.

It’s actually really nice, having dinner with the Russians. Evgeny is hilarious, and Dmitry is very earnest, but struggles the most with English of the three of them. And Alex - well, he’s sunburned across his shoulders and he laughs easily and Nicke wants to take him home and keep him.

Nicke’s in so, so much trouble.

They probably linger too long, ordering dessert, then continuing to drink, at least until Dmitry nods off against his hand sitting right there at the table next to his friends. Evgeny nudges him until his face slips off his fist and he startles awake, then Evgeny laughs at him while he glares ineffectively through his half-asleep haze.

“We probably should head back to apartment,” Alex says. They’re renting an apartment for a couple of weeks in town, Alex has explained previously.

It takes them another half hour to settle the bill, and Nicke’s pretty sure that Marcus is literally going to kill him and dump his body in the ocean by the time they all leave.

“Marc!” TJ calls on their way out, walking toward the doors with John’s hand in his back pocket and like - honestly, they’re a little bit gross. “Party at the house later?”

“Maybe,” Marcus says, shrugging, not missing a beat in stacking glasses left on their table onto his tray.

The Russians go their separate ways once they hit the parking lot, and Nicke follows TJ and John in his own car back to the frat house, where a party is already in full swing. Of course it is, because it’s the beginning of the school year, and they’re in a frat. Nicke can’t imagine what that’s like.

He pulls an old sweatshirt out of his back seat and tugs it over his head as he passes into the back yard. At night in September, it’s cool enough, and the sweatshirt is worn thin with years of use. He sags down into one of the plastic lawn chairs that litter the backyard, beer in hand. He doesn’t really care to be there, but it’s a good way to get a couple of free beers, and he’s already got a nice buzz going.

TJ drags him into a game of beer pong, anyway, which is stupid but TJ just can’t help himself, and he’s so fucking competitive that it’s sometimes a detriment, so Nicke gets pulled in and is also competitive. They’re beating a couple of pledges into the dirt when Marcus finally arrives, still wearing his work pants, a cup of beer in each hand.

“I can beat him, you know,” Marcus says to one of the pledges, finishing his first beer and stacking the two cups together, and Nicke catches the glint in his eye. He’s the only person Nicke knows who is better than Nicke at beer pong. The pledges only have one cup left, and without even putting down his beer, Marcus decimates the cups Nicke and TJ have left.

TJ is sputtering with rage, as though this is the first time Marcus has ever slaughtered him at beer pong.

“Good luck, boys,” Marcus says, finishing the last of his beer and walking away. Nicke feels something like pride, because he remembers when Marcus was a freshman and had never played beer pong, and couldn’t sink a single shot. And now the student has become the master.

Nicke and TJ win the game, because TJ might be drunk, but Nicke’s only buzzed and he’s actually very good at the game. TJ is crowing his victory as Nicke walks away, heading off to find a place to sit down. He finds Marcus sitting on the stairs, nursing his third beer.

“Tell me about your Russian boyfriend,” Marcus says to him, and Nicke rolls his eyes, but not without blushing.

“Whatever, he just wanted surfing lessons,” Nicke says.

“Sure. And you asked favors of your friends to do that, and then you asked favors to take him to dinner,” Marcus says. “But you’re not trying to date him, or anything.”

“He’s here on vacation. I’m not gonna date a tourist,” Nicke says.

“Okay,” Marcus says. “You want to fuck him, at the very least.”

“No,” Nicke says, when he really means abso-fucking-lutely.

“Nicke,” Marcus says, and he leans in very close to Nicke, his nose almost bumping against Nicke’s. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Nicke shoves him backward. “No,” Nicke says. “So what if I want to fuck him?”

“So nothing,” Marcus says. “I just wanted you to tell me about him, is all, since you’re busting your ass to impress him.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Then Nicke shakes his head. “I hate you,” Nicke finally says.

“Well, that’s a lie,” Marcus says, then gets up to grab another beer.

 

Nicke has a splitting headache when he wakes up on Sunday morning. He’s even slept in, because the shop doesn’t open until noon. He lays in bed for a while, his eyes closed and his head pounding, until he hears a faint beeping that indicates the coffee pot cycling off, which means that at least Marcus has gotten up and made coffee.

He pulls on a pair of shorts and the night before’s t-shirt, shuffling out to the kitchen. Marcus is nowhere to be seen, and Nicke assumes that he’s either gone back to his room, or he’s already left for the beach. That’s where Nicke’s going to go himself, but first he downs a full glass of water, then fixes himself a cup of coffee. He wanders back to his room for his shoes, then heads out, mug in hand.

On his way out the door, he nearly slams into Marcus, who is on his way back in. He looks a little worse for wear from the night before, and he’s got a fast food bag in his hand.

“I got breakfast,” he says. “For both of us.”

“Can we eat on the way to the beach?” Nicke asks.

“Give me two minutes, I wanna grab another cup of coffee,” Marcus tells him.

Nicke walks down to his car, leaning against the door and sipping his own coffee while he waits for Marcus. It’s a short drive, and they pull in next to John’s truck. Nicke squints out at the ocean, trying to figure out which specks on the waves are TJ and John. There are a few other people on the beach as well, which is unusual, but they’re getting to the beach a lot later than they normally do.

They house breakfast sandwiches with a quickness, discarding warnings that you shouldn’t swim for an hour after eating. Nicke’s pretty sure that’s bullshit, and it’s not swimming so much as paddling. They’re almost to the water when someone calls out his name.

Alex is sitting on a towel in the sand, one of his friends - the quiet one, but Nicke can’t remember his name - on a towel next to him. The other guy may actually be dead, it looks like from where Nicke is standing.

Marcus elbows him harder than is strictly necessary, because yes, Nicke _knows_ that Alex is right there. Marcus doesn’t need to let him know, other than he’s an absolute nightmare and the worst friend Nicke has ever had in his life. Especially since he then proceeds to _continue walking_ , wading out in the water.

“Hey,” Nicke finally says, once he un-sticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth at the site of Alex sitting there. No shirt. Lounged on the sand. Looking like some kind of fantasy Nicke didn’t know he even had.

“How was party last night?” Alex asks, like he can see Nicke’s hangover on his face. He probably can, actually. Nicke probably looks like he’d like to be lying face down in the sand like Alex’s friend currently is.

“It was a frat party,” Nicke says, shrugging.

“Is like in movies?” Alex asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t think so,” Nicke says. He either needs to sit down, or get out on the water and get his body moving. They stand there awkward, quiet for a moment, and Nicke looks over his shoulder. Someone - John maybe, he thinks, in his stupid American flag swim trunks he always wears - is riding a decent looking wave.

“Do you want to go to lunch with me?” Alex is suddenly saying, and Nicke turns back to him so quickly he almost gets dizzy.

“What?” he asks.

“Lunch. Do you want to go, just me and you?” Alex says. Nicke thinks Alex might be asking him out. Asking him on a date.

“Oh,” Nicke says.

“I mean, I thought - you don’t have to,” Alex says quickly, when Nicke doesn’t say yes.

“No,” Nicke says. “I mean, yes, I want to go. But I have to open the shop at noon.”

“Oh,” Alex says, and he actually looks sad.

“But dinner, maybe?” Nicke says, hopeful. Alex lights right back up.

“Sure,” he says. “Dinner. I come and pick you up at shop?”

“Sure,” Nicke says, and smiles.

 

The thing about Sundays is that Nicke not only opens the shop, but closes it. Sure, TJ and Lars pass through, taking tourists out on the waves. But they’re open until eight, and after that there’s not much left open but bars. Nicke knows where they can go, if they hurry - most restaurants are closed by nine, and the town shuts down for the night.

It’s seafood, of course, because they’re on the water. It’s a nice place, on the borderline of upscale, but not so upscale that Nicke has to change into anything but his flip flops. It’s definitely a date place, but he’s pretty sure that Alex intended for this to be a date when he asked.

They walk there from the shop, and then back after. Instead of going inside, or leaving, Nicke just grabs his hoodie from the back of his car and they head down to the beach. Alex links his fingers through Nicke’s.

“Not care that much about surfing lessons, you know,” Alex tells him after a while. They sit down in the sand halfway between the dunes and the waterline. “Dima want to learn, and he good at it.”

“Oh?” Nicke asks, a little surprised, almost hurt.

“Yeah,” Alex says. “But I see you giving other lessons to people last weekend. Good excuse to talk to you.”

“You came in because you saw me giving a lesson.” Nicke doesn’t phrase it like a question.

“I think you beautiful. Uh, handsome. Whatever,” Alex says, then flaps a hand through the air dismissively. “Even with your sunburnt nose.”

“Oh,” Nicke says again. Before he can say anything else, Alex leans in and kisses him.

 

On Monday morning, Nicke has to slide himself out from underneath Alex’s arm to get out of his bed. Sure, Nicke has seen Alex without his shirt on, because he gave him surfing lessons, but Alex naked is something entirely different, especially his naked ass in Nicke’s bed, where the sheets aren’t quite thrown over.

Nicke pulls on his shorts from the night before and tugs a discarded t-shirt over his head before making his way out to the kitchen. Marcus is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal, but it’s pretty clear he’s not very awake.

“Didn’t think you’d be up this early,” he says. There’s coffee in the pot, anyway, and Nicke pours himself a mug.

“I get up this early every day,” Nicke says.

“Most days,” Marcus says.

“Yeah, well,” Nicke says.

“I’m going out,” Marcus says, getting up and dumping the rest of his cereal milk down the sink before rinsing the bowl. “You gonna come?”

“I…” Nicke says. “I’ll see if Alex wants to come.”

Marcus narrows his eyes, looking at Nicke. “Do you want me to say it?” Marcus asks. “Because you set that up, and I will absolutely say it.”

Nicke feels his face start to heat up. He knows _exactly_ what Marcus is going to say, and Nicke did, in fact, set himself up for the thing that he does not want Marcus to say. He also hadn’t realized that he and Alex had made that much noise.

“Please don’t,” Nicke says, and Marcus laughs.

He pours Alex a mug of coffee as well and heads back for the bedroom. He puts both mugs down on his nightstand, and then leans across the bed, sliding his hand over Alex’s bare back, pressing his mouth to Alex’s shoulder. Alex makes a sleepy noise, and Nicke realizes that he really, really has a lot of feelings about it.

Fuck.

“Hey,” Nicke says. “Marcus and I are going surfing. You want to go?”

Alex shifts slightly, lifting his head up and looking at Nicke. “You go every day?” he asks sleepily.

“Most days,” Nicke says. “Then I go and I open the store.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Alex asks, and grins a little bit.

“No,” Nicke says. “But I do have to leave. And I brought you coffee.”

“I knew you were angel,” Alex says, reaching out as Nicke hands him the mug. “You have to give me my shirt back before we go though.”

Nicke laughs, tugging the shirt over his head and tossing it at Alex’s face.

 

The bad thing is that Alex is leaving to go back home to Russia at the end of the next week. He’s got a job waiting for him, he explains. Nicke finds himself wishing that Alex wouldn’t leave, wasn’t going back. Nicke’s not going to say that he’s in love with Alex, but he has feelings. Lots of feelings.

It’s gross, and he wishes that he didn’t.

Alex spends a lot of time hanging out with him at the shop, going surfing with Nicke in the morning, even though he’s terrible at it. He’s getting better, but he’s bad. And at the end of most days, Nicke takes him home and pushes him into bed.

On Alex’s last day, they sleep in. Nicke’s awake before his alarm, like usual, lying awake with Alex’s arm thrown heavy across his waist. Alex has on Nicke’s sweatshirt, smells like a mix of saltwater and sweat, marijuana and Nicke’s pineapple board wax. Nicke wakes Alex up with his mouth on Alex’s neck

They don’t go surfing that morning, but they do end up going to brunch. Nicke’s taken a rare day off from work so that he can spend time with Alex. He ends up at the shop anyway, puttering around because Alex has gone back to the apartment to pack, and to make sure that he and Dmitry have everything ready to head for the airport.

Nicke’s sulking, is what he’s doing, opening boxes in the stockroom and making sure the shelves are fully stocked, even though he just did it the day before. He needs something to keep his mind busy. TJ has been in and out with lessons, and John is hanging out in the shop, keeping busy by watching one of his new pledges flirt with Andre behind the counter.

Barry wanders in for about twenty minutes - long enough to see how many people are standing around his shop that aren’t working, and to tell them either to get out or get something better to do besides flirt with each other. This last part he directs at the pledge, who doesn’t even blush, even if Andre does.

“Carlson,” Barry says. “Teach the kid how to clean and wax boards if he’s gonna be in here taking up my kids’ time.”

John is up in a flash, dragging Tom over to the storage room and away from Andre. Nicke goes over to the counter, where Barry gives Nicke a firm pat on the back before disappearing into his office.

“Go help,” Nicke says, shooing Andre away from the counter.

Andre doesn’t say anything, just looks mortally wounded. NIcke shoos him away with his hands, and then he’s left alone at the front of the shop. It’s quiet for a while, with Andre and John in the back teaching the pledge how to wash and wax, and with TJ giving lessons. Nicke only sees him once, when he comes in to swap out one learner for another.

The Russians drift in around dinnertime, all three of them.

“Thank God,” says the funny one - Evgeny, the one Alex always calls Kuzya. Nicke frowns at him. “This one moping all day because he leaving.” He shoves Alex toward Nicke. “Go to dinner and get him out of my hair.”

Dmitry laughs at that. “I have to live whole plane flight with him,” he protests.

“On second thought,” Evgeny says. “You keep him and I go back to Russia. Okay? Thank you. Have fun at dinner kids. Be home by ten ‘cause have to leave for airport at terrible hour.”

He grabs Dmitry by the wrist and drags him toward the door. He crashes bodily into Marcus, who stumbles back, and Evgeny grabs him with the other arm to keep him from falling. “Sorry, Nicke’s waiter friend. We just leaving Alex here for Nicke.”

And then they’re gone.

“What the fuck?” Marcus asks, looking fully bewildered. Alex is blushing, standing across the counter from Nicke. Marcus looks at them for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “I was going to ask if you wanted to go get drinks but I’m just going to… not… be at our apartment instead.”

This time, Nicke blushes.

“Uh huh,” Marcus says. “Nevermind. Bye!”

And then he’s gone too.

“Do you want to get dinner? Or do you want to go - “

Alex cuts Nicke off with a kiss, making it clear what he’d rather do.

 

Once Alex is gone, they settle back into their regular routine. Up at dawn, though the later it gets in the season, the later dawn comes. Nicke doesn’t think he’s sulking about it, and he and Alex message each other all the time - sort of, because the time difference is huge. They message each other as much as they can.

Evgeny hangs out with them more, even coming surfing with them some days, when he feels like being up early before class, which is admittedly not that often. He’s better than he was, but he mostly goes surfing with them because he likes their company, it seems like.

One day after Christmas, at the very beginning January, Evgeny tells Nicke that he’s got a present for Nicke, which is strange, until Nicke remembers Evgeny mentioning that the Russians celebrate Christmas differently than in America.

“Is it actually Christmas for you?” Nicke asks.

“Tomorrow,” Evgeny says. “So I give you present tonight.”

They had a Christmas party before, so it’s a little weird, but Nicke goes along with it anyway. They go back to Evgeny’s apartment - not the one that the Russians rented over the summer, but the smaller one that Evgeny lives in near campus, which is one bedroom and not enough space for three fully-grown men.

Someone calls out in Russian when they come through the front door, which was not what Nicke was expecting. Evgeny responds, moving out of the way to let Nicke into the apartment. And then Nicke realizes that Alex is standing in Evgeny’s kitchen, fussing with something in a pot on the stove.

“Alex,” Nicke says.

“Surprise,” Alex says, and grins.

Nicke, not a romantic in any way, almost stumbles over his own feet getting to Alex and flinging himself into Alex’s arms. Alex is warm, and Nicke feels his back crack when Alex hugs him.

“What are you doing here?” Nicke finally asks.

“Hated job that I took. Decided I’m come here and work, instead,” Alex says. “Then maybe I’m able to be with you.”

“Oh,” Nicke says. And then, “yes.”

Alex grins, and Nicke smiles back.


End file.
